I Am a Sex Addict

2005 autobiographical comedy

Rating: n/r

Plot: Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi turns the camera on himself to examine his history as the titular sex addict.

I didn't get to finish this. I started it on Netflix Instant at about two in the morning the day that it was supposed to expire. When I tried to finish it after waking up, it was gone. It's too bad because I was enjoying the quirky style of this sorta-documentary, the staged reenactments, the playful metafilm quality, and the fun experimental tone. Also, there was going to be some more nudity. This was good enough and interesting enough that I'll start the whole thing over and try again when Netflix lets me. It's not something I'm willing to have mailed to my house though.

I hope this review was helpful.

Pinocchio

2002 family fun

Rating: 2/20 (Dylan: 0/20; Emma: .5/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: Pinocchio, as made by mentally challenged people.

"Who stole the salami?"

This may be the worst movie ever. Unless watching Roberto Benigni hop around like he's doing on the poster, only with less blue, is your cup of Pinocchio, you're not going to like this. Abbey claims to have liked it, but this might just confirm my theory that she's on drugs. At the 21 minute mark, Dylan started screaming in anger and ran upstairs. I continued watching but passed out and woke up later with the hair on half my head shaven. This is an ugly and stupid movie without a single redeeming quality. I will say this: We watched a dubbed version that is available on Netflix, and it was really tackily done. Sometimes, that can be comical; here, it's enough to make one old guy sick and a younger guy scream in anger and run off. Add to that some of the worst special effects you'll find. It's almost like there were real special effects, like Italian special effects or something, but the producers didn't think that Americans would understand them and dubbed them with really cheap C-studio special effects. A loud and painful movie.

Here's the question that I'm left with: What the hell is a puppet in Italy? Or a boy? Because a 50-year-old Roberto Benigni looked like neither. I think "puppet" must mean "ornery old man" or something over there. Or "one who inflicts great amounts of torment and pain." Or "character who is going to make your career much harder to defend to my friends."

Trail of the Screaming Forehead

2007 B-movie homage/comedy

Rating: 7/20

Plot: Body-snatching alien foreheads invade earth.

I watched and enjoyed Larry Blamire's The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, another intentionally bad homage to 50's low-budget movies complete with anachronism and continuity errors. That, for the most part, was an enjoyable experience. Screaming Forehead, despite a title that might make you think you're about to watch the next Citizen Kane (or Eraserhead), just doesn't work. I think it's a case where everybody is just trying too hard, and although Cadavra also struggled with that at times, it at least had some more subtle and quietly clever moments that made it worthwhile. I never felt happy that I was watching this one though. This movie's in color, probably the grossest color that a movie can be in. There's a ridiculously over-the-top theme song that I kind of liked, like Burt Bacharach on a bad trip. Ray Harryhausen is given a production credit, but I've not been able to find any evidence that he had anything at all to do with this.

Howard the Duck

1986 box office sensation

Rating: n/r (I couldn't finish it.)

Plot: A duck named Howard and his recliner is yanked from his planet and ends up in an alley somewhere in Cleveland. He meets a punk rock girl who takes him to a janitor to help him get back home. There's probably a bad guy later on, and I'm sure Howard has to try to phone home with a mouth full of Reece's. It's just another one of those cases where somebody has ripped off the plot of E.T. and managed to make an even more disagreeable movie.

The only movie I can think of that might be worse than a trip to Cleveland, Ohio. I watched this for three reasons:

1) I didn't think it could possibly be as bad as I remembered or as everybody seems to think.

2) If it is as bad as I remember or as everybody seems to think, it might fall into "good-bad" territory, and I could point and laugh at it.

3) I wanted to use a "quacking up" pun on the blog.

Unfortunately, it's not either of the first two. It's a terrible movie--poor writing, embarrassing effects, a main character who is impossible to like, auxiliary characters who aren't any better, an incoherent plot, dozens of details that date it--but it's nowhere near entertaining. It's excruciating, so excruciating that I gave up on it after Tim Robbins' second appearance. Like the majority of decisions in my life, the decision to watch Howard the Duck was a bad one, leaving me depressed and very unlikely to quack up any time soon.

Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman

2000 horror-comedy

Rating: n/r

Plot: Well, apparently a mutant killer snowman from a first movie is brought back to life after a laboratory accident. He travels, naturally, to a beach resort to get revenge on some really boring characters. After travelling as water, he manages to collect a carrot and charcoal in absurd ways and eventually, I'm guessing since I couldn't finish the movie, becomes an entire mutant killer snowman.

This is not just a movie that I couldn't finish. This is a movie that forced me to wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life. After shutting this one down, I sat in a motionless, depressed funk for what I thought was a week and a half but turned out to be only seventeen minutes and twenty-three seconds.

Renaissance: Paris 2054

2006 science fiction cartoon

Rating: n/r

Plot: I don't know. I didn't stick around long enough. I think it had something to do with futuristic mimes.

Maybe I'll give this one another shot some day, but I could not stand the animation. The high constrast stuff with blacker-than-black blacks and blindingly white whites made this seem cold. I figured that the visual style might be the only quality worth watching it for (I was bored by the story and characters almost immediately), and that didn't exactly grab me. Anybody seen this? Should I give it another chance when I'm in a better mood? Should I have even bothered making a blog entry about it?

An American Carol

2008 comedy

Rating: n/r

Plot: Something about terrorists hiring a Michael Moore-esque director to help them with their training videos, I think. And the Michael Moore character wants to abolish the Fourth of July. He's fat!

I lasted nearly 15 minutes before deciding that I had better things to do. I saw no laughs on the horizon. I guess "From the makers of Scary Movie 13" on the cover should have been a clue.

Rollerball

2002 remake

Rating: 3/20

Plot: I don't know. I stopped paying attention after a few minutes. There's lots of rollerballing with intermittent music videos.

I had to invent a new blog label--"Movies I couldn't finish"--for this one. Glad I decided to pop in this loudly obnoxious piece of crap. And now, all of a sudden, I hate the first movie and the rap stylings of L.L. Cool J. Way to go, remake of Rollerball. Way to go. I'm not sure how big the list of people who thought this was a good idea is, but all of them should be lined up and kicked right in the rollerballs.